Background process plate produced for an unidentified feature film, shot from an automobile driving through Bunker Hill and downtown Los Angeles.

Please help identify the streets and locations.


This movie is part of the collection: Stock Footage

Audio/Visual: silent
Keywords: process plates; stock footage; Bunker Hill; Los Angeles; film noir; automobiles; Southern California

Creative Commons license: Attribution 3.0

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Reviewer: Pithecanthropus - - May 19, 2013
Subject: Highest historical value
If I'm not mistaken, the opening shot is facing towards the southeast on Second, from a vantage point above the entrance to the tunnel. If this is correct then the Kawada Hotel (today's name) can be seen at the southwest corner of Hill and Second, in the distance just beyond the second intersection here.

Reviewer: volumexxx - - January 19, 2013
Subject: Shockproof, 1949
The first two minutes of this footage is the background process plate for Douglas Sirk's film "Shockproof", 1949. This is from scene when parole officer Griff Marat (Cornel Wilde) rides with Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight) from her house to him.

Reviewer: Kodachrome - - January 1, 2013
Subject: 5 stars
This must be the coolest video I have found here to date. I do remember LA as it was in the early 60s and this is a sweet remembrance. The film is in top condition also. Amazing.

BTW, my dad worked in the Richfield building. I remember the eagle at the top. As befitting the oil industry, the walls and floors were made of black marble with gold accents. It was a shame to see it go.

Reviewer: jsmog - - October 24, 2011
Subject: I miss the Richfield Building
I just wanted to point out the Richfield Building at 5th & Flower, which appears on the right (with the aerial) after 4:12. I remember this building before it was torn down in the late '60s...what a loss!

Reviewer: Treadway - - September 13, 2011
Subject: Possible candidates for the film?
These are the 40s/early 50s films listed on IMDb as having scenes shot in the location Bunker Hill, Downtown Los Angeles:

Somewhere in the Night (1946)
The Unfaithful (1947)
Act of Violence (1948)
Hollow Triumph (1948)
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
Criss Cross (1949)
Cry Danger (1951)
M (1951)
Cry of the Hunted (1953)
Kisds Me Deadly (1955)

Reviewer: silentechoes57 - - September 13, 2011
Subject: Stan, Ollie, and Harold Lloyd filmed here too
The footage not only provides a wonderful glimpse of post-WWII Bunker Hill, now lost to civic redevelopment, but illuminates Los Angeles during the silent film era as well.

As I explain in my book Silent Visions, Harold Lloyd filmed scenes for seven different movies at the intersection of 3rd and Grand, on Bunker Hill, more scenes than at any other location in Los Angeles. It was a popular place for Laurel and Hardy, and other Hal Roach Studio stars to film as well. The Prelinger film drives twice by Lloyd’s intersection of 3rd and Grand, providing razor sharp images of where Lloyd and other silent stars filmed.

You can see several scenes from Hal Roach silent comedies, and how they compare to the Prelinger film, here at my blog.

http://silentlocations.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/stan-ollie-and-harold-a-drive-through-bunker-hill/

Here is a map of the route driven during the film.
http://flic.kr/p/akLQPz

Reviewer: slangton - - September 8, 2011
Subject: 318 South Grand
My Grandfather, John Colby owned The Palace Garage & Machine Shop. 318 South Grand Avenue. The Garage appears twice in the video on the right hand side after Cut Rate Drugs and the Cleaners.

Reviewer: scram - - September 8, 2011
Subject: Some of us have been dreaming footage like this exists
Truly astonishing stuff. Thank you, Internet Archive, for finding, transferring and sharing this gem from lost Bunker Hill. It's even more satisfying to see it after the disappointment of discovering that the game producers of the much-hyped "L.A. Noire" chose not to even bother rendering the lost neighborhood.

Over at the Off Bunker Hill mailing list, LA historians and former Bunker Hill residents have been identifying structures and dating vehicles. One person even thinks they've spotted their father leaning on a lampost!

Off Bunker Hill list
http://groups.google.com/group/offbunkerhill

On Bunker Hill time travel blog
http://onbunkerhill.org/

Reviewer: Rick Prelinger - - September 7, 2011
Subject: Some interesting annotations here
http://blogdowntown.com/2011/09/6380-a-drive-around-late-1940s-bunker-hill

Reviewer: jbermudes - - September 7, 2011
Subject: An cool look at historic downtown LA
Location notes:
2:01: Driving west on 2nd street
Turns south onto Grand.
Turns west on 5th street.
Turns north on Flower

Footage continues at 4:13 heading north on Flower Turns east on 2nd.